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Cancer accounts for about 1 in 8 deaths today, but a controversial new study asserts that it was virtually nonexistent in the ancient world and appears to have vastly accelerated as we industrialized. In other words, it's a man-made phenomenon. In the study, hundreds of Egyptian mummies were examined and only one was found to have the disease, reports LiveScience. "In an ancient society lacking surgical intervention, evidence of cancer should remain in all cases," says Villanova's Michael Zimmerman.

Nor did researchers find evidence of it in literature of the times or in medical studies of ancient fossils. Descriptions of specific tumors began to crop up only in the late 18th century, notably among chimney sweepers and snuff users. One skeptic of the overall conclusion offers a different reason why cancer was so scarce way back when: People simply didn't live long enough to get it.

Kudos, bro, on this very much deserved award. It's almost as sweet for me as if I'd won the contest, since I predicted your triumph and rooted for you as the week progressed and I saw no other promoted stories that grabbed my attention the way yours did. You're just getting started, and branching out from science news into politics, etc., so my guess is that you may win again before the contest is over. I'm frantically busy right now and needing to get even busier since the years is ending and I'm determined to move into a different situation before the end of 2010, I will always love newser but my prayer is that I will never again have time to waste here the way I have for so many hours in the past. You may have noticed that I've just passed the 6000 comments level. One way I justify it is that they will provide my son with a window into my mind long after I've gone, and it could serve as a kind of chronicle of my time in limbo since the tragic events that started me on a steady decline beginning in December 2006. That was also the year that my son graduated from high school, and he has now just completed college with a CS/Math degree and landed a job making more to start than I ever did in any year of my career. So -- wonderful things have happened in my life as well and I am very thankful. I started on newser about two years ago when I moved to this place without cable TV and was too depressed and defeated even to hook up an antennae to my old set. My Clearwire modem has been my primary window on the world since then and it has served me well. I've had many interesting conversations on newser, and "met" some folks in this virtual world who perhaps someday will become reals friends. Maybe you are one of them. I'll put an email address on the Usergrid discussion forum for awhile and I hope you will contact me. And don't pay any attention to DLY. He's developed an obsession with my manly liberalism and becomes insanely jealous of anyone who threatens our virtual sado-masochistic bromance here on newser. Ta for now. Kguy